Greta Gerwig has revealed she broke into a spontaneous tap dance at her audition for new film Damsels In Distress.

The Arthur star plays a quirky college girl in the new film, and decided to go the extra mile to bag the part.

"It's a dark comedy about a girl at a liberal arts college who runs a suicide prevention centre by getting suicidally depressed students to star in musicals from the 1930s and teaching them how to tap dance," she explained.

"I grew up tap dancing actually! So I tap danced for the audition even though they didn't ask me to. It's good to oversell."

The film is made by The Last Days Of Disco writer-director Whit Stillman, one of Greta's "favourite filmmakers".